Victoria 3 crashes on launch continuously

[SinisterPig]

Integrity​

I have verified my game files (on Steam)​

Yes

I have disabled all mods​

Yes

Required​

Summary​

Victoria 3 crashes on launch continuously

Description​

I have tried to play victoria 3 for the past 2 months now but whenever I try to launch the game through the launcher it always crashes to desktop after giving me a black screen. I suspect it is something to do with steam as when I run the victoria 3 exe file the game can run, but doing this sometimes disables my dlcs, so I would like to be able to play through steam. I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling the game, verifying files, even deleting steam files in the game folder, but nothing works... Would you know of any solution to this?

Steps to reproduce​

Launch Victoria 3 on windows 10
Click resume in launcher
Game shows black screen then crashes to desktop

Game Version​

1.8

OS​

Windows

Additional​

Bug Type​

Crash to Desktop

Save Game​

Attachments​

Player Pain​

10

 

[PDX_Sosanna]

Moving to Tech Support

 

[AndrewT]

A bit hard to see why you can run victoria3.exe okay but the launcher cannot!


Do check that NONE of these files are set to run as the Windows Admin user:

steam.exe
victoria3.exe (in the Steam Vic3/binaries folder)
dowser.exe (in the Steam CK3/launcher folder)
C:/users/{username}/AppData/Local/Programs/Paradox Interactive/launcher-v2.2025.3/paradox launcher.exe
C:/users/{username}/AppData/Local/Programs/Paradox Interactive/bootstrapper-v2.exe

IF that doesn't help, in this folder are some .log files:
C:/users/{userName}/AppData/Local/Paradox Interactive/launcher-v2/
Please attach them here.
To see the AppData folder you'll need to enable View Hidden Items in File Explorer.

 

[SinisterPig]

A bit hard to see why you can run victoria3.exe okay but the launcher cannot!


Do check that NONE of these files are set to run as the Windows Admin user:

steam.exe
victoria3.exe (in the Steam Vic3/binaries folder)
dowser.exe (in the Steam CK3/launcher folder)
C:/users/{username}/AppData/Local/Programs/Paradox Interactive/launcher-v2.2025.3/paradox launcher.exe
C:/users/{username}/AppData/Local/Programs/Paradox Interactive/bootstrapper-v2.exe

IF that doesn't help, in this folder are some .log files:
C:/users/{userName}/AppData/Local/Paradox Interactive/launcher-v2/
Please attach them here.
To see the AppData folder you'll need to enable View Hidden Items in File Explorer.

I just figured out what the issue was and its kind of dumb...
I apparently had in my launch settings under steam properties
-dx12
and when i removed that victoria 3 runs fine
so yeah i guess it was that simple

 

[AndrewT]

I didn't even know that was an option ... !